


Once Upon a Time

by R00bs_Teacup



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:25:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3441935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a little boy missing, and the FBI thinks that Arthur might know something. Merlin, of course, is present and supportive and protective as Arthur tries to help find the missing child</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS! WARNINGS! warnings are in the notes at the end, due to being slighting spoilerish. All have to do with child abduction.

“Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away, there lived a good king. He was kind and generous and his land prospered. He had a beautiful queen and every day he told her how much he loved her and how precious she was to him, and she was good, too. She helped the poor and the unfortunate and made sure the king showed mercy, as well as justice. They ruled happily side by side for many years, and their lands were known the world over for being happy and sunny. 

One day the king and queen decided that they needed an heir. A prince or princess to rule after them, someone wonderful to love with all their hearts. They were over-joyed at the idea and tried right away. They tried for three years before realising that there must be something wrong. They got more and more unhappy as the time went by and still no heir was born to them. They consulted every magician, every healer, every seer in all the land, but no one could help them. 

One day, the king went and spoke to a priestess of all magicks. She told him that his queen was damaged and could not bear children, but she could help, she could heal the queen. The king said he would do anything, and so the priestess of all magicks was brought to the palace and to the queen. She was as good as her word- before the year was out, the queen had bourn a beautiful baby boy, and the kingdom rejoiced, and the queen was happy once more. 

While the queen had been trying and trying to have a child, the king had been trying and trying, also. He was determined to have a child. No matter what. He had gone to another queen, of a close kingdom, and had snook into her bed and made a princess with her. Now that she had a child the queen once more paid attention to her husband, and she found out about the princess. She threatened to tell the kingdom what he had done and he was very angry and very unhappy. He blamed the queen and banished her from his lands. 

He kept the prince with him and the princess, too, and the neighbouring queen. They ruled the conjoined lands with their children. The banished queen was heartbroken for her lost child and her lost love, and she wandered for years, lost and alone. She cursed the kingdom she had lost, every chance she got and soon she began to hear news of the once-bountiful place rotting and the once-happy citizens becoming angry, sly and dangerous. 

She was glad that he husband was not happy, but she was so afraid for her son, for her little boy. One day she ran across the priestess of all magicks, and tricked her into helping her boy. She paid the priestess a high price to get the boy back for her, with her strong magic, and the priestess did it. Only after the boy was in her arms did the queen reveal that the gift given to the priestess was cursed, and the priestess would never be able to speak of what she had done, who it was she had taken. 

The boy and the queen could live happily ever after, unafraid of being found out, and the king would have to live without his son forever. The end.”

~…my son is only ten, please, whoever you are, I know that you just want to care for him. But please, please, bring him back to me…

That was the mother of ten year old Thomas Keene, who went missing sometime yesterday afternoon from outside his school in Boston. The police say that they’re following up several leads, but if anyone has heard anything please call the number provided. That’s…~

Merlin switches off his radio alarm and heaves himself out of bed. Arthur’s already up, in the shower, of course, he’s probably already been for a run, too. Merlin does his teeth and takes a leak and then commandeers the shower, giving Arthur a wet kiss in passing as Arthur climbs out to go make coffee. 

It’s not until he’s drunk three mugs that Merlin wakes up properly. Arthur’s watching him over a piece of toast, looking amused, far too put together for this early hour. 

“It’s gone ten, Merlin,” Arthur says, “hardly early.”

“My alarm went off. I thought I stopped it last night?”

“You were wankered, you probably just made your ring tone Justin Beepy or something.”

“If my ring tone is Justin Beepy I am not going to think it was me, no matter how much groundwork you lay.”

“What are you on about, Merls? I didn’t do anything. You were awfully drunk. Come on, drink up, we have to go to brunch with the Toads.”

“Morgana and her sister are not th- you know what? I give up. They’re not here, call ‘em what you like. If you slip and do it to their faces, though, I’m not bailing you out.”

“Toast?”

“No. Go away.”

Arthur laughs and when the doorbell goes he just sits, munching away, watching Merlin expectantly. Merlin holds out as long as he can, but in the end, when whoever it is doesn’t go away, Merlin has to give in and go get the door. He slaps Arthur round the head on his way past in retaliating but Arthur just takes another bite of toast and chuckles to himself. Merlin throws open the door, expecting his neighbour, Gwiane, but it’s not Gwaine. Far too well dressed to be Gwaine. Far, far too well dressed. 

“Um, hi?” Merlin tries. 

“Good morning, I’m agent Thomason, this is agent Inti. We’re with the FBI. Does Arthur Pendragon live at this address?” Well-Dressed-Bloke-Number-One says, holding out a badge. 

Merlin takes the badge and pulls out his phone. 

“Wait a second,” he tells the agents. 

He calls up to check that the badge number is real, checks that Agent Thomason is real and in Boston, then turns back to the two men at the door. 

“There goes my good morning,” Merlin says, “wait here.”

He keeps hold of the badge but closes the door and goes through to the kitchen, texting Morgana that they’re not going to make it on the way. Arthur looks up from his toast, grinning, showing off a mouthful of chewed food. 

“Sales person?” Arthur asks, “they piss in your wheeties? You look moody.”

Merlin turns a chair and sits on it, facing Arthur, and holds out the badge without a word. Arthur takes it, still grinning, and then his face falls and closes off. 

“I already checked it. They’re for real. There are two of them. I told Morgana we wouldn’t be there. It’s up to you if you want to talk to them.”

“What do they want?”

“Boy by the name of Thomas went missing this morning. I suppose it fits.”

“Here we go again. Well, I guess we’d better do this.”

Merlin nods and goes to let the two men into the house. 

“Shoes off,” he says, “sorry to be rude, we’ve got a way of playing this by now, yeah?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, I’m sure this happens every now and then,” Agent Inti says. 

“Arthur has your badge, Agent Thomason,” Merlin says, ignoring the apology, “would either of you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, thank you, we just have a few questions. We’ll be out of your hair as soon as we can,” Inti says. 

Arthur’s managed to put away his toast and tea and found a jumper to pull over his naked chest by the time they go through to the kitchen. He points the agents to two chairs on the other side of the table to him and Merlin leans against the counter to watch. 

“I’ll start,” Arthur says, “by re-iterating that I remember little to nothing about what happened to me as a child. I am happy to answer any questions you have, but I doubt this is the same person who took me. None of the others were, and it’s been sixteen years, so the FBI surmised that whoever it was must have been arrested for something else or died.”

“Yes, I know,” Agent Thomason says, “I’ve had a look at the case and what is known fits remarkably closely with a current case in this area.”

“We were living in Maine when it happened,” Arthur says, “so this is a whole new location for whoever it is. If it’s the same whoever.”

“I’d like to ask you what you remember about the night it happened. I know you’ve been over it before, but I’d like you to do it once more for me,” Inti says. 

“I went to school as usual, started to walk home with the woman who used to pick me up and look after me till Dad finished work, and then there’s a huge blank space and I woke up somewhere dark. I don’t remember much, I remember someone telling me stories and then I remember being at home again.”

“This was over the space of two weeks.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember anything at all about why you were let go?”

“No. I have dreams, sometimes, where I’m going for a walk with my mother and I wander off, and when she’s out of sight I run, but… I don’t know why I’m running away from my mother. My mother’s lovely. We thought that the person who took me was a man. So, I dunno. That’s just a nightmare, I guess.”

Merlin listens to the rest, absently. They’ve been over it a hundred times. Still they come, every time a case comes up that’s similar. With the lack of information on Arthur’s abduction there are quite a few which seem to fit. Finally the two agents leave them alone and Merlin’s free to go to Arthur.

“How’re you holding up?” Merlin asks, kneeling between Arthur’s thighs. 

“Alright. I don’t think this is him.”

“No, it doesn’t sound like it. What do you need?”

“Crap TV and junk food.”

“Done.”

**

The next time the FBI visits Arthur is less patient, but he allows their questions and answers as much as he can. He spends most of his time in the two days since the boy was taken trying to remember anything. He paces, lies on the sofa, meditates, but nothing pops. He even goes over old photographs from around the time, pictures of the house, pictures he drew for his therapist after it happened. Then, the FBI come back and tell them. 

“I’m very sorry,” Agent Klee says. 

She’s Merlin’s favourite, because she’s softer and gentler than the others and she really listens to Arthur, and she hears him. 

“I don’t understand,” Arthur says, “if it’s the same man that took me, I mean, he let me go. Why didn’t he let this boy go, too?”

“We think his death was an accident. He tried to run away, and he just fell into the river. It was dark, he couldn’t see, he was afraid…”

“I don’t understand. He’s only little, I don’t understand. I tried to remember, why can’t I remember? Is it surely the same guy?”

“We think the unsub is a woman. A profiler had a look at the case, at your case, when it happened, and he thought the unsub in your case may have been a woman, too. You told the agent leading the investigation that the voice you heard telling stories was soft and hoarse, and that you remember being hugged. We generalise genders a lot in this job, but that’s because there are very specific patterns that come out in psychosis.”

“An agent?”

“Agent O’Roark. He didn’t have anything to do with the case, we only go where we’re called in, but he took a look, after the fact, as a favour to your father. Or rather, a friend of your father’s.”

“My father knows a lot of people.”

“Arthur,” Merlin says, stepping forward, “I think that’s enough.”

“I want to help. I want to remember.”

“We can try taking you back. I know that it’s been done before, and hasn’t been very successful, but we can go through it and see what comes to the surface.”

“I dream a lot,” Arthur says, “it gets mixed up in that. I don’t know what will be true and what will be just dreams I’ve had since.”

“It might be useful. I think it would be worth trying.”

Arthur looks at the other agent who’s come this time, a skinny man who goes by doctor rather than agent, who’s sitting in the corner flicking through Arthur’s file of ‘therapy stuff’ that’s been kept from the time, then turns back to Klee and nods. 

They go to the office and sit in silence, Merlin beside Arthur for moral support. The quiet settles and Klee’s soft voice fills the room, guiding Arthur to the day before and through to the time of the abduction. 

“I don’t know. It was dark. I can hear water, dripping.”

“What can you smell and feel?”

“It smells like dirt, and like wood. I’m warm. It’s okay, it’s soft, but it’s dark. I don’t like that.”

“Okay. You’re safe, you’re completely safe, I’m right here with you. Can you take me through a day there?”

“Day? I don’t know. It’s always dark. Sometimes someone tells the story, I like hearing the story. It’s always the same one. They have a nice voice.”

“Tell me about the voice. Do you recognise it?”

“No.”

“Is it a man or a woman?”

“It’s hoarse. I like it. It’s quiet.”

“Can you tell if it’s a man or a woman?”

“No.”

“Do you sleep regularly?”

“I sleep sometimes. The voice tells me when. I get food, when I wake up.”

“What do you eat?”

“Pancakes. Fat ones with maple syrup. I get juice, too, in a little cup with a lid and a… for a baby.”

“A bottle?”

“No. A sucky cup. For a baby. I’m six, I’m not a baby. I lost a tooth.”

“What changes?”

“It’s dark for a long time. I think someone’s in there with me, sometimes, hugging me. I don’t know. It’s dark.”

“Do you sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. You’ve been there a long, long time. What can you smell?”

“It smells funny. Like the bathroom at Daddy’s work. I want my Daddy.”

“You’re safe, remember? I’m right here.”

Merlin reaches out for Arthur’s hand, asking the agent’s permission. When it’s given he takes Arthur’s hand and holds on. 

“It smells like Daddy after he plays with me for a long time.”

“What can you hear?”

“Crying. Someone’s crying.”

“Is it a woman?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you recognise them?”

“It’s the voice who reads the story. I go to the place she reads it, to the wall there.”

“You said she.”

“She has pretty hair. The wall goes away and she has pretty hair.”

“What happens next?”

“I’m walking with her, she has my hand. I’m walking with my Mummy and then I run away. I’m running, I’m running, and she’s chasing me. Why is she chasing me? I want my Daddy! It hurts, I don’t like it, I don’t like it I don’t like it!”

“Okay, okay. You’re safe. You can open your eyes now, you’re alright.”

Arthur’s eyes fly open and he clutches convulsively around Merlin’s fingers, then launches himself into Merlin’s arms and starts to cry like a child. 

“Thank you,” Klee says, “I’m sorry that was painful.”

“Did you find anything?” Arthur hiccups, pulling himself quickly together, blushing and sitting up, “sorry about that.”

“No problem. You remembered that it was a woman, and that she took you outside and you ran away.”

“No, that’s a dream,” Arthur mutters, rubbing his eyes, “it’s a… Mum doesn’t have blond hair.”

“What?” Merlin asks, surprised. 

“The woman, in the dream. I’m running away and she’s ‘mummy’, you know? That’s the name. I never called Mum that, and Mum doesn’t have blond hair, and the lady in the dream does have blond hair.”

“It’s not your Mum?”

“No. Mum was ‘Mamma’ when I was small, not ‘Mummy’. Why did I never notice? Is it… maybe it isn’t a dream.”

“I think it’s a least partially a memory. I think the person who took you was a woman, and I think that she lost a child at some point. I think that she is taking surrogates for that child,” Klee says, “we’ve seen it before.”

“But why the gap, then?” Merlin asks. 

“Who knows? Maybe she was in prison, maybe she was hospitalised. Could be that she was satisfied with what she got from you, Arthur, and went back to living a stable life until something triggered her again. Do you remember anything else about her?”

“No. She’s never had a face. I never even noticed the hair before. No one took me all the way through like that, not in one go. I used to scream and scream in the dark and they woke me up. I don’t like the dark.”

“He doesn’t,” Merlin says, grinning, “we have a night light. It’s shaped like a dragon, I named it Kilgarah.”

“Don’t tease me, it’s rooted in trauma!” Arthur says, grinning back.

“You’re a silly sod, that’s where it’s rooted,” Merlin says, kissing Arthur’s nose. 

“Ugh! Tickles!” 

Merlin kisses his nose again. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Klee says, “I should collect Hanson and go update the team. There are some things to follow up on and we can deliver the profile now. Thank you for helping, hopefully we’ll be able to-“

The agent stops and turns to the door, where Hanson is stood. 

“Sorry,” he says, “we need to go, JK.”

“She took someone else,” Arthur says, going white, “didn’t she? Another one? And he’s blond, like me and Thomas, isn’t he?”

Hanson just gives Arthur a grim smile and he and JK leave. Arthur lies on the sofa for the rest of the day and he has to have the bedside light on as well as Kil, that night. 

**

Klee returns the next day and takes Arthur through days before and after the case, the same way she did with the abduction. She goes through lists of people he knew, gets him to go through old photograph albums collected from Uther naming everyone. Arthur does it all, spending the day with her, trying to help. Merlin brings them food and coffee and hot chocolate with sprinkles and wraps Arthur in a big, knitted blanket Arthur’s Mum made when Arthur starts to shiver. 

“I want to call Mum,” Arthur says, when Klee goes to the kitchen to make a phonecall.

“We can do that. Where is she, at the moment?”

“I don’t know. You know her, she travels everywhere since she and Dad broke up. Morgana keeps track but I don’t want to talk to Morgana.”

“Okay, we’ll just call your Mum. It’s not like you can’t afford the cost of the bill if she is somewhere like Mongolia.”

Merlin goes to get Arthur’s phone and listens in to the call, relaxing a little when Arthur actually laughs at something Vivien says. 

“She’s here,” Arthur says, “in Boston. She’s going to come over. Mum, where’s Dad?... he’s in Paris, Merl. His secretary gave over the photos. Okay, Mum, see you in a bit. Bye.”

Merlin likes Vivien, and when she turns up she starts baking cookies, which is amazing. Merlin’s Mum can’t cook or knit blankets or anything homely like that. She’s a kick-ass doctor, but that doesn’t make up the cookie deficit. Vivien fills that up by giving Merlin as many cookies as he can eat. 

“I don’t know who that is. Mum, who’s the man with Dad in this picture?”

“Wow, I haven’t seen a picture of Gor in years. That’s Gorlois, I nearly married him! Imagine that? He’s Morgause’s father. We were so very young. Uther was dating someone, at the time. We used to go on double dates! We had ice cream, it was just like in Grease.”

“I don’t think they had ice cream in Grease,” Merlin says, frowning. 

“Oh shush. It was Gor who introduced Uther and I, come to think of it. I’d dropped out of college to look after Goosey, Gor was trying to make enough money to support us. Uther was willing to help out and we spent more and more time together, and then Gorlois ran off, and Uther picked up the pieces. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Dad dated people not-you?” Arthur asks, sounding scandalised. 

Merlin muffles his laughter. Arthur’s insistent innocence about some aspects of the world are endearing. 

“Have you dated people not-Merlin?” Vivien asks. 

“Well, obviously,” Arthur says. 

“Just like that, Uther dated people not-me. I think… yes. It was Ygraine deBois, I believe. She was a beautiful woman. A socialite, very rich. She even came out!”

“I came out,” Arthur says, dumbly. 

“Not of the closet,” Merlin says, biffing him with a pillow, “idiot. As in a debutante? No?”

“Yes,” Vivien says, grinning, “she was quite something. Porcelain skin, such lovely eyes. You look a bit like her, Arthur, actually.”

“Excuse me,” Klee says, “she looked like Arthur? Do you have a photo?”

“No, no. I don’t think we do. It was a long time ago.”

“Was she still around, say, six, ten years later?”

“No, of course not! After Morgana was on the way and we got married, there was never any question…” Vivien frowns, “no, I’m wrong. Hang on. Uther would be able to tell you more, but I think that she moved back in with her family, about a year, year and half? Before you were born, Arthur. She had some kind of break down.”

“Did you families socialise?”

“No. Uther knew her father through business, but no, we kept away from the family. It would have been awkward! She was Uther’s ex, after all.”

“Thank you, Mrs Pendragon, Arthur. I think that’s all I need for today.”

“She’s not Mrs Pendragon, she kept her own name,” Arthur says, frowning down at a picture of Morgana hitting him round the head with a laundry basket. They must be about twelve and fourteen at the time, “she’s Vivien LeFey.”

“Ms Lefey, then.”

“I answer to Pendragon. My son is simply being facetious to please himself. I’ll show you out.”

Merlin snuggles into the sofa with Arthur, flicking forward to when Arthur’s a gangly youth with a missing front tooth and then further until he reaches Arthur’s nineteenth birthday, then his twentieth birthday party. 

“Oh, oh! Look, who’s that? Right there, the handsome man on your arm?” Merlin says. 

“Shut up. You’re not handsome, not there. You look about ten and your grin is psychotic.”

“I’m lovely. You told me so.”

“I was drunk! And dating someone else at the time! You seduced me, you evil man.”

“You were hardly dating Lance. You slept with him, but he was in love with Gwen even then.”

“Don’t remind me. I was pathetic.”

“But then I saved you.”

“Thanks.”

“Any time.”

“Not for saving me, you idiot. For now.”

“Yeah, I know. Come on, help me sneak into the kitchen and eat the batch of cookies before Viv decides it’s too close to dinner time.”

They tiptoe through, giggling and holding on to one another. 

**

After another day Arthur’s exhausted. He starts to cough and by the morning he’s running a fever, weak as a kitten, unable to sleep without having bad dreams. When the doorbell goes Merlin puts on his fiercest face and marches out, gesturing Vivien back into the kitchen. He throws open the door and glares at agent Thomason and doctor Hanson. 

“You can’t see him,” Merlin says, “he’s made himself sick helping you and you’re no nearer to-“

“We know who abducted him,” Hanson says, blurting it out, “and we need to speak with you, first, and probably with Ms LeFey.”

“So talk.”

“Ygraine deBois,” Agent Thomason says. 

Vivien gasps, and Merlin glares at her. 

“I told you to stay in the kitchen,” he says. 

“It’s been a long time since I let a man demand my imprisonment to a stove, Merlin. Ygraine took Arthur? Why?”

“We believe she thinks he was her son. She had a mental breakdown two years before he was born after losing a child through miscarriage. In fact, we think she had several. She wasn’t in a relationship and there’s only one on record, but the doctor thinks there had been previous similar experiences,” Thomason says. 

“God, poor woman,” Vivien says. 

“Viv, she took your son!” Merlin says. 

“We think that when you had a son, with the man she had a connection with, she started to believe the fantasy that she and Uther Pendragon were having an affair. Her father says that he thought that she really was having an affair with Pendragon,” Thomason says. 

“And Arthur looks a bit like her. You know, he actually looks more like Uther, when he was younger. But I suppose Uther was grey by then and Ygraine didn’t make the connection. And I’m so dark.”

“Exactly.”

“Why didn’t she take boys in the gap, though?” Merlin asks. 

“She had a son of her own,” Hanson says, “we think that’s why the age change, too. Her own son is thirteen now and is too old to be her ‘baby’, as it were. He fulfilled her fantasy until he grew too big, so she had to find someone new.”

“She married?” Merlin asks. 

“No, she adopted a baby with her father’s help,” Thomason says. 

“Why do you need Arthur?” Merlin asks. 

“We’ve checked every property linked with Ygraine deBois and talked to everyone connected and we can’t find anything. We need to find out what Arthur remembers about his surroundings,” Thomason says. 

“He’s ill. You’ve asked him everything,” Merlin says. 

“Merlin?” Arthur asks, appearing at the end of the hall. Merlin glares at the agents, beckons them in and goes to his partner. 

“It’s okay. Come on, come lie down. I’ll talk to you in the bedroom,” Merlin says. 

Arthur lets himself be lead back to bed, but he keeps his eyes on the agents until he can’t anymore. He lies down and gives Merlin a meaningful look. 

“I’m telling you, I’m telling you. Keep your hair on,” Merlin says, tucking him in, “they have more questions. You’ve given them enough, you don’t need to tell them anything.”

“I’ll help. I can help. They need to find the boy.”

“Alright.”

Merlin sighs, and calls Vivien to give them five minutes and then bring the agents in. He gets behind Arthur so Arthur can rest against him and then he bends his head, kissing Arthur’s neck and jaw, rubbing his stomach until he relaxes a bit. 

“I love you,” Merlin says, “I love you so much. You’re amazing. I’m right here. I love you.”

He keeps blabbing, repeating the words in a hundred different ways, until Thomason comes in. Hanson stands by the door and watches as Thomason takes Arthur through the later days of the kidnapping again. 

“Now you’re outside, with the voice,” Thomason says, when Arthur’s immersed, “what can you see?”

“It’s a forest. Pretty. Green, lots of green leaves.”

“Where have you come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look behind you. Is it a house?”

“No. Not a house. I was in a box, and she was in the little hut. There’s a wall missing, and glass is gone. Shed.”

“Is there a river?”

“Yes. It’s been raining, everything’s wet. There’s a river. Big one. I can see it.”

“From the place you were in the dark?”

“Yes. The lady shows it to me, crouches to talk to me. I push her and she falls into it and I run away, because she wants me to call her Mummy but I think my Daddy will want me home, now. I didn’t mean for her to fall in the water, but she’s swimming so I run away.”

“Where do you run?”

“Along the river. Daddy says to follow the water, because water is where people live. I run and run for a long time.”

“How long?”

“It goes from light to dark and then there’s a road and I run and run and run. It was afternoon, because the sun was over the top, and then it was night and it was dark and I screamed and screamed because I was so scared. I’m scared. There are lights, but I’m too scared, it’s too scary, it’s dark, I’m cold, I want to go home. I want my Daddy and I was my Mamma. I don’t want the new Mummy, I’m sorry, I just don’t want the new one!”

“Okay, you can wake up, you can open your eyes. You’re safe. Hanson?”

“Yeah, I’ve got that. Thom, I think I can find them.”

“Good. Thank you, Arthur. We’ll be in touch.”

The agents leave in a flurry of activity and phonecalls and Merlin’s left holding Arthur, listening to him crying, saying he’s sorry over and over again. Vivien comes and sits with them but Arthur won’t look at her, he just keeps apologising. 

“I think he liked her,” Merlin says, “or thought he should have liked her.”

“She told him she was his mother,” Vivien says, “of course he thought he should have liked her. Arthur, I promise you, I am your mother. I gave birth to you. Pushing your giant head out of my vagina is not a forgettable experience. You came out screaming your lungs out, healthy and big and just like your Dad, loud. I held you, covered in blood and goop and still attached to me, I held you. I promise, you are mine.”

“Morgause said I was a nuisance and should have been left with the man who took me,” Arthur says, into Merlin’s shoulder, “my hair hurts.”

“That would be the fever,” Merlin says, stroking Arthur’s head and gentling his hair, massaging his scalp. 

“Morgause is a stupid woman who doesn’t know shit,” Vivien says, “I was glad you came home. I was… God, I thought I was going to die when you went missing. Not suicide, I just thought I was being ripped to pieces and I was just going to fall into nothing, and then there you were on the doorstep with the police and I had you back and- I love you. You’re mine.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t like the new Mummy,” Arthur says, miserably, clinging to Merlin. 

“I’ll make you hot chocolate and some cookies,” Vivien says. 

Merlin soothes Arthur off to sleep and just holds him and holds him. 

**

“Merlin?” Arthur asks, waking the next morning, swamped by the sweat of his broken fever. 

“Morning,” Merlin says, exhausted, half asleep in a chair by the bed.

“Did they find the boy?”

“Yes,” Merlin says, smiling, “thanks to you, they found him. He’s going to be fine. Maybe he’ll need a night light, but he’ll be just fine.”

“Ygraine?”

“Is crazy and a criminal. Don’t worry, she’ll get help. Her son will have to go into foster care but I think he’ll be okay, too.”

“They saved them.”

“You did all the hard work. They just wrung you out, squeezed everything out of you. I’m cross with them. I will be writing a firmly worded letter.”

“Alright,” Arthur says, “can you thank them, too?”

“Thank them!”

“They got her. I’m done, I’m sorted. They got her.”

“I’ll put a post script in the strongly worded letter saying that you feel misplaced gratitude.”

“Good enough. Where’s Mum?”

“She’s gone for a run, she’ll be back. You threw her a little last night.”

“I’ll let her make me French Toast.”

“No wonder you hate pancakes,” Merlin says, softly, “I never understood that, what with your sweet tooth. French toast is nicer, anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“I love you, you know that? You’re like a real live super-hero, saving that little boy.”

“I didn’t-“

“Yeah, you did. You walked through hell, over and over again, to find the bits of information needed to get him back to his family. You did it without complaint, as often as they asked it of you, as long as you could. You gave everything in you for him. You are a hero. You are a hero to me.”

“That’s pathetic. Please stop, it’s awful.”

“Aw, you’re blushing. Come on, get up. I want to change the gross sheets so I can sleep for a week.”

“You’ll have to wake up for French toast.”

“Promise.”

Arthur gets out of bed and sits in the chair, watching Merlin through slitted eyes, smiling. They sleep clinging to one another, but Arthur doesn’t dream. 

**

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: child abduction, child death off screen, grief, loss of child


End file.
